Trying to run KDE 6 Plasma with Wayland....

[LibreQuest]

I'd think that a good test would be to first get a basic Xorg with TWM to even show up on your RTX 4060. If that is successful and reliable, then you're ready to see if Wayland can be given a go on the same hardware. It's OK, the two can live in the same machine and not fight

I use Plasma6 with X11 at the moment. It has no issues. It's highly reliable.

 

[astyle]

I just don't want to reboot the computer every time I step away overnight or even for 5-10 minutes.

This is another thing that is probably tied to proper interaction with the GPU drivers, just like Spectacle was. All I can do is compile and complain out loud.

OK... Plasma 6.4.1 got released, and it's even in Ports, but can anyone tell me if that made any difference to screenlocker bugs I was complaining about? I'm not sure I'm quite up to the task of spending a few days flogging my 7600 again so soon. If there is solid info that the screenlocker bugs have been dealt with, I'd go right ahead and put in some effort. Otherwise, I'd prolly wait for plasma 6.5...

 

[astyle]

Info from another thread:

I only compile select packages from ports, most are updated by binary download using 'pkg'.
With 6.4.0 on Wayland, it sometime would allow be to "Ctrl+C", but alot of the time it wouldn't, I had to resort to left+click menus and copy/paste that way. "Ctrl+ V" was mostly safe. With 6.4.1 just cannot use "Ctrl+C" full stop without dropping me back to SDDM.
I do not have problems with Wayland crashing if the screen turns off. I do have Radeon 5600XT using the 6.1 kmod drivers from ports.

My reply:

This almost sounds like it's hardware-specific for Wayland to crash if screen turns off... like some GPUs being OK, and others - not really. I guess this means I better check out 6.4.0 with a dfferent GPU under Wayland.

Gonna check out how well my setup holds up under either RX 550 4GB or under RX 6900 XT - this will tell me if it's a power management quirk (that only rears its ugly head with a Raphael iGPU) or if the problem is elsewhere. Stay tuned!

 

[astyle]

From another thread:

Well, wow.

Restarting SDDM did the trick for power management, but the session was lost. Everything I was working on (A re-compilation of www/firefox in Konsole) was lost, I was given a brand-new session. That is kind of a showstopper that does need to be addressed.

When I type in my password at a locked screen, I expect to be able to come back to whatever I was working on.

Yeah, the power management is really linked to SDDM, not GPU. I had to SSH in from the side and restart SDDM. Output is actually easy to capture, and a copy of that is here:

Spoiler: Output of restarting SDDM

root@way-kde6:/home/astyle # service sddm restart
Stopping sddm.
Waiting for PIDS: 1324.
Starting sddm.
root@way-kde6:/home/astyle # [10:14:24.702] (II) DAEMON: Initializing...
[10:14:24.705] (II) DAEMON: Starting...
[10:14:24.705] (II) DAEMON: No session manager found
[10:14:24.705] (II) DAEMON: Adding new display...
[10:14:24.705] (II) DAEMON: Loaded empty theme configuration
[10:14:24.705] (II) DAEMON: Xauthority path: "/var/run/sddm/xauth_SDnfah"
[10:14:24.705] (II) DAEMON: Using VT 9
[10:14:24.705] (II) DAEMON: Display server starting...
[10:14:24.705] (II) DAEMON: Writing cookie to "/var/run/sddm/xauth_SDnfah"
[10:14:24.705] (II) DAEMON: Running: /usr/local/bin/X -nolisten tcp -background none -seat seat0 vt9
-auth /var/run/sddm/xauth_SDnfah -noreset -displayfd 15
[10:14:24.927] (II) DAEMON: Setting default cursor
[10:14:24.928] (WW) DAEMON: Could not setup default cursor
[10:14:24.929] (II) DAEMON: Could not set Xcursor resources QProcess::FailedToStart
[10:14:24.929] (II) DAEMON: Running display setup script  "/usr/local/share/sddm/scripts/Xsetup"
[10:14:24.929] (II) DAEMON: Display server started.
[10:14:24.929] (II) DAEMON: Socket server starting...
[10:14:24.930] (II) DAEMON: Socket server started.
[10:14:24.930] (II) DAEMON: Loading theme configuration from "/usr/local/share/sddm/themes/breeze/th
eme.conf"
[10:14:24.930] (II) DAEMON: Greeter starting...
Detected locale "C" with character encoding "US-ASCII", which is not UTF-8.
Qt depends on a UTF-8 locale, and has switched to "C.UTF-8" instead.
If this causes problems, reconfigure your locale. See the locale(1) manual
for more information.
[10:14:24.938] (II) HELPER: [PAM] Starting...
[10:14:24.938] (II) HELPER: [PAM] Authenticating...
[10:14:24.938] (II) HELPER: [PAM] returning.
[10:14:24.938] (II) HELPER: Writing cookie to "/tmp/xauth_oiRJRc"
[10:14:24.938] (II) HELPER: Starting X11 session: "" "/usr/local/bin/sddm-greeter-qt6 --socket /tmp/
sddm-:0-IVhGJQ --theme /usr/local/share/sddm/themes/breeze"
[10:14:24.939] (II) DAEMON: Greeter session started successfully
[10:14:24.966] (II) DAEMON: Message received from greeter: Connect
[10:14:41.178] (II) DAEMON: Message received from greeter: Login
[10:14:41.178] (II) DAEMON: Reading from "/usr/local/share/wayland-sessions/plasmawayland.desktop"
[10:14:41.179] (II) DAEMON: Session "/usr/local/share/wayland-sessions/plasmawayland.desktop" select
ed, command: "/usr/local/lib/libexec/plasma-dbus-run-session-if-needed /usr/local/bin/ck-launch-sess
ion /usr/local/bin/startplasma-wayland" for VT 10
Detected locale "C" with character encoding "US-ASCII", which is not UTF-8.
Qt depends on a UTF-8 locale, and has switched to "C.UTF-8" instead.
If this causes problems, reconfigure your locale. See the locale(1) manual
for more information.
[10:14:41.187] (II) HELPER: [PAM] Starting...
[10:14:41.187] (II) HELPER: [PAM] Authenticating...
[10:14:41.188] (II) HELPER: [PAM] Preparing to converse...
[10:14:41.188] (II) HELPER: [PAM] Conversation with 1 messages
[10:14:41.189] (II) HELPER: [PAM] returning.
[10:14:41.189] (II) DAEMON: Authentication for user  "astyle"  successful
[10:14:41.189] (II) HELPER: [PAM] Preparing to converse...
[10:14:41.189] (II) HELPER: [PAM] Conversation with 1 messages
[10:14:41.189] (WW) DAEMON: Authentication information: SDDM::Auth::INFO_UNKNOWN "Last login: Fri Ju
l 25 10:14:12 from thinkpad.localdomain"
[10:14:41.189] (II) HELPER: Starting Wayland user session: "/usr/local/share/sddm/scripts/wayland-se
ssion" "/usr/local/lib/libexec/plasma-dbus-run-session-if-needed /usr/local/bin/ck-launch-session /u
sr/local/bin/startplasma-wayland"
[10:14:41.213] (II) DAEMON: Session started true
[10:14:46.122] (II) DAEMON: Greeter stopping...
[10:14:46.122] (WW) HELPER: Signal received: SIGTERM
[10:14:51.150] (WW) DAEMON: Error from greeter session: "Process crashed"
[10:14:51.150] (WW) DAEMON: Auth: sddm-helper (--socket /tmp/sddm-auth-502cc7fb-c5de-4a1f-954c-d7775
d3cd4cd --id 2 --start /usr/local/bin/sddm-greeter-qt6 --socket /tmp/sddm-:0-IVhGJQ --theme /usr/loc
al/share/sddm/themes/breeze --user sddm --greeter) crashed (exit code 1)
[10:14:51.150] (WW) DAEMON: Error from greeter session: "Process crashed"
[10:14:51.150] (WW) DAEMON: Auth: sddm-helper exited with 9
[10:14:51.150] (II) DAEMON: Greeter stopped. SDDM::Auth::HelperExitStatus(9)

This brought me back into a Wayland session, but having to restart everything from scrach is no fun. So, at this point, I can see that this is not GPU-dependent, but about buttoning down the session management and display management for Wayland specifically.

This very well could mean that either SDDM is still not quite up to task (and I need to look for an alternative) or there's something up with sysctl and ENV variables again. To be honest, that is kinda beyond my troubleshooting skills. If somebody can suggest something to try, that would be awesome1

Having to restart everything if I walk away for even 5 minutes - that is pretty frustrating, and definitely a showstopper for KDE under Wayland on FreeBSD.

The thread I'm quoting - it also mentions issues with Ctrl-C key sequence that we're all so used to. SDDM seems to be struggling with that under Wayland, as well. Ctrl-C has weird and undesirable behavior under Wayland when SDDM is involved.

 

[Oleg_NYC]

And now the fix for the right click crash is in ports. There is no need to apply the CXXFLAGS+= -D_LIBCPP_TYPEINFO_COMPARISON_IMPLEMENTATION=2 workaround anymore.

 

[drr]

I could run plasma in wayland today without any issues, however, I was unable to switch between the wayland session and TTYs. In X11, the Alt, Ctrl, Fn combination works fine for me, but not in wayland. I was able to switch to the second TTY once, but could not go back to the wayland session or any other TTY from there. Is there a way to switch between wayland session and TTYs properly?

 

[T-Aoki]

I could run plasma in wayland today without any issues, however, I was unable to switch between the wayland session and TTYs. In X11, the Alt, Ctrl, Fn combination works fine for me, but not in wayland. I was able to switch to the second TTY once, but could not go back to the wayland session or any other TTY from there. Is there a way to switch between wayland session and TTYs properly?

Have you tried Alt+Fn on TTY (vty)? Alt+Ctrl+Fn wouldn't work on TTY.

On the other hand, Alt+Fn doesn't work on xorg and Wayland and need to combine with Ctrl.

 

[drr]

Thanks T-Aoki ; I did not know that Alt+Fn is the right key combination in TTYs.

Now I am able to switch to a TTY from plasma wayland and also hop between TTYs, however, I am unable to return to the wayland session.

 

[astyle]

Thanks T-Aoki ; I did not know that Alt+Fn is the right key combination in TTYs.

Now I am able to switch to a TTY from plasma wayland and also hop between TTYs, however, I am unable to return to the wayland session.

Why would you want to switch out of a Plasma Wayland session? That kind of capability is usually useful for debugging the graphics stack and collecting error logs. But beyond that, any CLI stuff is easily handled by Konsole in Plasma Wayland session...

But if there are other uses that Konsole cannot provide, please let me know (Although I'm pretty sure that it's possible to switch TTYs in any terminal emulator, be it Konsole or XTerm...)

 

[drr]

Why would you want to switch out of a Plasma Wayland session? That kind of capability is usually useful for debugging the graphics stack and collecting error logs. But beyond that, any CLI stuff is easily handled by Konsole in Plasma Wayland session...

But if there are other uses that Konsole cannot provide, please let me know (Although I'm pretty sure that it's possible to switch TTYs in any terminal emulator, be it Konsole or XTerm...)

Thanks astyle

I used to switch to a TTY1 to look at messages from the X11 session, e.g. recently I have been getting continuous warning messages from my Plasma X11 session about not being able to connect to pipewire. I followed advice found elsewhere in the forum and added pipewire to Plasma's auto-start and that stopped the messages. I was attempting similar debugging with Wayland.

 

[T-Aoki]

Thanks T-Aoki ; I did not know that Alt+Fn is the right key combination in TTYs.

Now I am able to switch to a TTY from plasma wayland and also hop between TTYs, however, I am unable to return to the wayland session.

What happenes when you press Alt+F9 on any of TTYs to get back to Wayland?
Another TTY? Or black screen (non-functional Wayland session)?

If the former, possibly different vty is used for Wayland session (possibly compositor dependent).
If the latter, it could be an actual problem.

On xorg, I encounter "black screen" under quite heavy load (i.e., massive poudriere builds) AND nightly locate DB update is running at the same time.
I assume this would be because too few CPU ticks and I/O bandwidth are given to screensaver (screen locker) to handle authenticating and kicking back from screensaver. In these cases, not always, but forcibly killing screensaver (in my case, mate-screensaver) with kill -KILL pid_of_screensaver usually helps.
Not sure about Wayland.

 

[elgrande]

What happenes when you press Alt+F9 on any of TTYs to get back to Wayland?
Another TTY? Or black screen (non-functional Wayland session)?

AFAIR the Wayland session does not reside in TTY9, but in the TTY where it was started from.

 

[drr]

AFAIR the Wayland session does not reside in TTY9, but in the TTY where it was started from.

Thanks, my Plasma Wayland session was started in TTY1 and it seems to be there.

Another TTY? Or black screen (non-functional Wayland session)?

Switching to TTY1 lands me in a non-functional Wayland session. I see the startup messages from wayland and a working Plasma mouse cursor. The Plasma session seems to be running though it is not visible, because I could do a Ctrl+Alt+Del, Right arrow, Enter to logout from the session into TTY1.

 

[astyle]

Based on a quick cursory look on how Linux camp is faring with KDE Plasma Wayland - the distros are trying to market themselves as 'Wayland by default', but in reality, nearly everybody is complaining about how Wayland is still broken, and still far away from achieving parity with Xorg. In FreeBSD, at least, I see some effort in overcoming the technical hurdles, and I'm happy to participate and learn how to use the appropriate tools to the extent that my abilities allow.

I have not been paying much attention to the Linux side of the Wayland efforts very much, but the impression I get is that the overall sentiment can be summed up like this: "Let's default to Xorg for now, and just sit on the sidelines while we wait for somebody else to solve that problem.".

Fragmentation between the distros means that for nearly all of them, 'correct' solutions for overcoming technical hurdles are gonna be distro-specific.

Based on the stage I just set, I'd say we very well could be in a race with the Linux camp to have actual functional KDE Wayland available. I mean, if we get Pipewire going reliably and correctly, I have faith that it will be another 'set and forget' thing for FreeBSD. And if Wayland session management gets ironed out by us - another 'set and forget'.

 

[Oleg_NYC]

Thanks, my Plasma Wayland session was started in TTY1 and it seems to be there.


Switching to TTY1 lands me in a non-functional Wayland session. I see the startup messages from wayland and a working Plasma mouse cursor. The Plasma session seems to be running though it is not visible, because I could do a Ctrl+Alt+Del, Right arrow, Enter to logout from the session into TTY1.

I have found a partial workaround for this problem. If I am running a Plasma Wayland session and then switch to a bare TTY, typing "killall -9 kwin_wayland" would immediately make the kwin compositor show up on my monitor. The screen would turn entirely black because this is what you would normally see when dealing with the basic kwin interface. I would then type Super+W to access kwin's search bar, and in the bar, I would type plasma_session. That would bring the full GUI back. As I said, it's just a partial workaround because if you started chromium or foot before the VT dance, you would have to start them again. Konsole and many other graphical apps would still be alive though.

 

[drr]

I am trying to use Plasma Wayland session as my desktop and everything that I use are working fine so far, except for screen sharing in Gmeet with Firefox.

I have installed 'xdg-desktop-portal' and ran 'pipewire', which stopped Firefox/Gmeet from complaining about permissions, etc. I can also see a red dot on my taskbar suggesting pipewire is probably recording the screen, however, Firefox/Gmeet does not share the screen.

I have also tested it with the gUM Test page mentioned in this wiki article, without success. Anyone managed to get screen sharing working in Plasma Wayland with Firefox?

 

[Oleg_NYC]

I meant to say Super+W, not Ctrl+W.

 

[astyle]

I am trying to use Plasma Wayland session as my desktop and everything that I use are working fine so far, except for screen sharing in Gmeet with Firefox.

I have installed 'xdg-desktop-portal' and ran 'pipewire', which stopped Firefox/Gmeet from complaining about permissions, etc. I can also see a red dot on my taskbar suggesting pipewire is probably recording the screen, however, Firefox/Gmeet does not share the screen.

I have also tested it with the gUM Test page mentioned in this wiki article, without success. Anyone managed to get screen sharing working in Plasma Wayland with Firefox?

which versions are you runnng? do screenshots work for you? How about stepping away from the computer for 5-10minutes?

 

[drr]

plasma6-plasma-6.4.3
wayland-1.23.1_1
firefox-142.0,2
pipewire-1.4.1_1
xdg-desktop-portal-1.20.0_2
plasma6-xdg-desktop-portal-kde-6.4.3

All packages installed with pkg from the default repository. My FreeBSD version is 14.3-RELEASE-p2.

Screenshot works fine for me; plasma6-spectacle-6.4.3 is the version installed.

 

[elgrande]

Anyone managed to get screen sharing working in Plasma Wayland with Firefox?

Not exactly an answer to your question but usually Chromium is better at such tasks.

 

[astyle]

plasma6-plasma-6.4.3
wayland-1.23.1_1
firefox-142.0,2
pipewire-1.4.1_1
xdg-desktop-portal-1.20.0_2
plasma6-xdg-desktop-portal-kde-6.4.3

All packages installed with pkg from the default repository. My FreeBSD version is 14.3-RELEASE-p2.

Screenshot works fine for me; plasma6-spectacle-6.4.3 is the version installed.

Thanks!

To answer your question - I never tried screen sharing before in Firefox, so I wouldn't know...

Anyway, have you tried stepping away from the computer for 5-10 minutes, letting the screen go blank, and coming back to it? It seems like my Wayland session crashes if I let the screen go blank. I can certainly try the workaround that Oleg_NYC suggested.

I'm basically wondering if letting the screen go blank after 5-10 minutes of inactivity has the same effects as switching the TTY or not. My thinking goes, if those two different activities result in the same-looking session crash, that may point to a fairly simple solution that we're not thinking of.

 

[drr]

Not exactly an answer to your question but usually Chromium is better at such tasks.

Thanks. I may give it a try.

Anyway, have you tried stepping away from the computer for 5-10 minutes, letting the screen go blank, and coming back to it?

The screens lock works fine without any issues.

Just to add that I start Plasma Wayland session from the terminal with dbus-launch --exit-with-session ck-launch-session startplasma-wayland; I do not have SDDM.

 

[astyle]

The screens lock works fine without any issues.

Just to add that I start Plasma Wayland session from the terminal with dbus-launch --exit-with-session ck-launch-session startplasma-wayland; I do not have SDDM.

Thanks! This really gives me hope that there's light at the end of the tunnel.

I actually have SDDM, and may need to reconfigure it to use your command instead of the default.

 

[elgrande]

Thanks. I may give it a try.

You may want to start it with chrome --enable-features=UseOzonePlatform --ozone-platform=wayland to make sure it runs natively in Wayland and not in XWayland.

 

[Oleg_NYC]

Switching to TTY1 lands me in a non-functional Wayland session. I see the startup messages from wayland and a working Plasma mouse cursor. The Plasma session seems to be running though it is not visible, because I could do a Ctrl+Alt+Del, Right arrow, Enter to logout from the session into TTY1.

With the help of ChatGPT, I was able to get rid of this problem. It wrote patches for the plasma6-kwin port, and now if I start hopping between TTYs while the plasma wayland DE is running, I will be able to return to the DE's TTY and the DE will remain visible.